THE GOOD

Reds win their second game in a row for the first time since, I don’t know… 1983?

Edinson Volquez once again made the opposing team look silly, giving up only one run and improving his record to 6-1.  By the way, Volquez’s ERA is 1.12 - that’s better than every starting pitcher in the National League, and second in the majors behind Cliff Lee.  Oh, did I mention that Volquez hasn’t given up more than one run in a game all season?  Did I tell you that Volquez also leads the majors with 57 strikeouts?

Stop me if you’ve heard this all before.

THE BAD

Adam Dunn went 0-3, lowering his average to a smoldering .203.

THE UGLY

Jeff Keppinger fractured the patella in his right knee after fouling a ball off of his knee.  I’m no doctor (however, I do play one on TV), but a broken kneecap doesn’t sound like something that will improve with a Band-Aid and a bowl of chicken noodle soup.  It’s safe to say that Reds officially have a problem at shortstop.

Fortunately, I’m sure the Reds won’t miss Keppinger’s .324 batting average.  Right, Dunn?

Just when I got done thinking praying that Corey Patterson had not-hit his way out of the starting lineup for good, he goes and has a 4-for-5 performance against the Florida Marlins on Monday night.

Pisser.

And you know what the Reds’ victory against the MLB-best Marlins means?  Not a damn thing, other than the fact that Aaron Harang finally got his second win of the season.

I admit that my interest in the Reds is already waning.  These days, I rarely watch them play on the Slingbox, and most of what I know I get from box scores and articles about the games.  I make no apologies, because this team is borderline unwatchable now.

Fair weather fan?  Hardly.  I’m sensible.

That’s not to say that I’m not following the team, because I am.  When I’m in the car, I turn on the XM radio, see on the display that the Reds are losing by 7 runs in the 3rd inning, then I turn it off, then I curse Matt Belisle and Gary Majewski (even if they’re not pitching) and listen to Wilco instead.

Why should I subject myself to that sorry excuse for a baseball team some people call the Cincinnati Reds?

Not that I need to justify my disdain for this team any more, but chew on this for a minute:

Corey Patterson is so bad.

(How bad is he?)

Corey Patterson is so bad that he got credited with an out in the 9th inning of yesterday’s game… when he was in the on-deck circle.

It seems that Mr. Patterson was supposed to lead off the 9th inning, but instead David Ross did.  Dusty Baker blames himself for the mistake, but I like to blame Corey Patterson because it’s so damn easy to blame Corey Patterson.

The Reds play the Florida Marlins next. 

Question #1: Name five players on the Florida Marlins without cheating. 
Question #2: Guess the 2008 Florida Marlins payroll.   
Question #3: Guess the 2008 Cincinnati Reds payroll.
Question #4: Guess the 2008 Florida Marlins record.
Question #5: Guess the 2008 Cincinnati Reds record.

Answer #1: Hanley Ramirez and a bunch of other guys.
Answer #2: $22.6 million (30th out of 30 in MLB)
Answer #3: $74.1 million (18th out of 30 in MLB)
Answer #4: 23-14 (first place in the NL East, which just happens to be the BEST RECORD IN ALL OF BASEBALL!)
Answer #5: 15-23 (last place in the NL Central, second worst record in all of baseball)

Makes you wonder what the Reds are doing wrong.  Well, other than everything.

Mother Nature reared her ugly head on Friday night, forcing the Reds to throw their vicious one-two punch of Matt Belisle and Bronson Arroyo at the Mets on Saturday.

The result: Comedy Gold!

Game 1 - Reliable Belisle was his usual self, making sure that he wasted no time crushing any and all hope the Reds had of beating Johan Santana.

Game 2 - This one was somewhat of an anomaly because we had two guys (Arroyo and Mike Pelfrey) who - shall we say - had both given up a crapload of runs this year.  So what happens?  They only gave up one run and two runs respectively.

Jeff Keppinger went 5-5, Scott Hatteberg had 3 RBI, and Corey Patterson continued his campaign to be the most hated man in Cincinnati sports (the honor currently belongs to #85) by lowering his batting average to a smoldering .198.  Meanwhile, Ryan Freel is batting .316 (I hear he plays CF, too!).

But the player of the game goes to (shockingly) Bronson Arroyo, who went 8 innings, with 9 Ks, giving up only 4 hits and 1 run.  Arroyo has now had two good outings in his last three starts.  Actually, Arroyo has had two good outings in his first eight starts this season, but let’s try not to look at it like that, okay?

I’m not a proponent of user-comments on websites.  There, I said it.  That’s not to say that they don’t serve their purpose in the right environment, under the right conditions, with the right people, though.  For example, I think the way Red Reporter utilizes comments during game-action is quite good.  As long as people stay on topic.  But people rarely stay on topic.

I make a point to not read the comments attached to most articles (news or sports-related) because, quite honestly, 99.9% of the comments are crap.  I was reminded of this yesterday as I was reading the ESPN article on yesterday’s Cubbies/Reds game.  I was shocked to see that there were over 600 (SIX HUNDRED) comments for this article alone.

“Do that many people really want to talk about Joey Votto?” I thought to myself. 

Of course not. 

Since it was an article about the Cubbies, Cubbie fans had to chime in - and nobody had anything to say about Jon Lieber’s performance, or what the Cubbies can do to improve their starting rotation.  No, the Cubbie fans were there to talk about anything but yesterday’s game.

600+ comments of crap that had nothing to do with the game.  Why were these people even here?  Do they not have friends?  Families?  Lives?

What?! You actually want to read the comments? Go ahead. I dare you. Within seconds you’ll actually feel your brain turn to the consistency of an Oreo Cookie that fell into your glass of milk, but you forgot about it until you finished the glass of milk half an hour later and you don’t see it until it was stuck to the bottom of the glass.  Forever.

It’s exactly like that.

You know what, I’ll save you the trouble.  Here is my interpretation of the comments you will see attached to every single article about the Cubbies:

1. An overly optimistic Cubbie fan starts things off by saying it’s only one game and that the Cubbies are going to win the World Series this year.  “This is our year!” he declares.  (This person is probably still wearing his Glenallen Hill Cubs jersey)
2. A non-Cubbie fan joins the conversation by making a comment about how the Cubbies haven’t won a World Series in 100 years.
3. A Cubbie fan responds by saying, “At least we sell out our games.” (Oh, snap!)
4. Another non-Cubbie fan responds by saying, “You may sell out your games, but your fans are all stupid!”  (Touché)
5. A Cubbie fan - seeing that the last commenter wasn’t from Chicago - responds with, ”You don’t live in Chicago, therefore you must be a hillbilly!” (We called them “grits” where I grew up, but whatever)
6. A non-Cubbie fan reminds the Cubbie fan that they haven’t won a World Series in the last 100 years.
7. A Cubbie fan responds by saying the White Sox suck.  (Now they’re getting personal)
8. A non-Cubbie fan responds by saying that “he’s not a White Sox fan, he just hates the Cubbies.”  (Fair enough)
9. A Cubbie fan apologizes for jumping to conclusions and assuming that the previous commenter was a White Sox fan, but then goes on to question the commenter’s sexual preferences, family lineage and his mother’s choice of intimate partners.
10. A non-Cubbie fan says that it wasn’t cool to bring up his mother, but now that she’s part of the conversation, she hates the Cubbies, too.
11. A Cubbie fan joins the conversation and adds, “CUBS RULZ DUDE! WTF! GO BACK TO THE SOUTH SIIIIIIIIDE PUNK!  CUBBIES #1!!!!! WE’RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!  STOP BEING A HATER!!!!!”
12. Everyone then spends the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what that last guy said.
13. Someone suggests that people that use all-caps are gay.
14. A Cubbie fan tries to tell other Cubbie fans that it’s still early and that they shouldn’t be concerned by their recent struggles.  He then mentions how the Cubbies had a worse record at this time last season and they still made the playoffs, but fails to mention that those same Cubbies got swept in the first round of the playoffs.
15. A Cardinals fan joins the conversation and starts insulting Chicago’s cuisine - Italian beefs, deep dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dogs - they all suck.
16. A Cubbie fan declares that all Cardinals fans are hillbillies (read: Grits) and idiots.  Then he complains about Marty Brennaman making sweeping generalizations about Cubbie fans.  Then he says that Marty is just jealous because the Cubs fired him.
17. Everyone informs him that THOM Brennaman used to work for the Cubbies, not Marty.
18. Someone mentions that the Cubbies haven’t won a World Series in 100 years.
19. A Cubbie fans joins the conversation and says, “At least we sell out all of our games.”
20. A Cubbie fan says, “White Sox suck!”
21. A Cubbie fan says, “Yeah… the White Sox DO suck!”
22. A non-Cubbie fan says that Wrigley Field is the worst place in all of America to see a baseball game (Oh, no you didn’t!)
23. A Cubbie fan responds to the previous commenter by saying, “At least we sell out all of our games.”
24. A Cubbie fan says that “all you haters” are just “jealous” of the Cubbies.
25. Everyone then spends the next 67 days trying to figure out what the Cubbies have that their team doesn’t have, and how they could possibly be jealous about it.

You think I’m kidding?  Read any article about the Cubs on the Chicago Tribune.  It doesn’t matter what day of the week, or what the article is about - just read it.  The article could be about the fabric used to attach the numbers to the Cubs’ uniforms and I guarantee you that within the first 5 comments a nonsensical argument will break out between Cubbies fans and non-Cubbie fans.  Of the 300+ comments that will be attached to that article, four of them will actually be about the fabric used to attach the number to the Cubbies’ uniforms.

When you’re done reading the comments, look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do I leave comments like this on websites?”  If the answer to that question is yes, then may God have mercy on your soul.

Chris Sabo’s Goggles is only a couple of months old, but so far, the people that have left a comment here (Mom, Dad…) have actually had something to say related to the article it was attached to.  What a novel idea.  And for that, I thank you.

Not bad for a bunch of hillbillies, huh?

I just didn’t see any way that the Reds were going to be on the losing end of a Jon Lieber/Edinson Volquez battle. 

Hitting four homeruns in one inning, seven in the game, and three by Joey Votto - well, I didn’t see that, either.

So, if you believe Ryan Dempster (which nobody really does), then the Reds just won 2 of 3 against the 2008 World Series champion Cubbies, and are 3-3 against them this season.

It may not be much, but it’s a start.  The Reds are off to New York next to play the Mets, where they will surely be knocked back down to Earth.

Ken Griffey, Jr. is my favorite baseball player. Period. The fact that Griffey ever ended up in a Reds uniform is an achievement in itself.  The Reds will never see a player of Griffey’s caliber walk through their doors again. 

At least not wearing a Reds uniform.

Junior deserves better than the crap factory that’s been on the field in Cincinnati during his tenure with the Reds. That’s why after the buzz has died down from Griffey’s 600th homerun, the Reds should actively look to trade him.

You don’t need to read between the lines of this article to see that Griffey feels the same way.

A lot of people (including me) forget that a lot of Junior’s deal was back-loaded:

“Money had nothing to do with me” leaving, says Griffey, adding he was offered an eight-year, $138 million extension from the Mariners. He wound up signing a nine-year, $116.5 million deal with Cincinnati, deferring $57.5 million in hope that the Reds would be able to build a championship club around him. It never happened.

Those last three words are worth repeating: It never happened

Griffey is in his ninth (!) season with the Reds, and what did they do with that deferred money to make the club better? Sign Eric Milton?

This guy has suffered some catastrophic injuries in a Reds uniform, and every time he has busted his ass to come back and continue to be a pretty damn good player.  Ken Griffey, Jr. at 50% is ten times better than most people on the Cincinnati Reds, and thirty-two times* better than Corey Patterson.

Junior deserves better.  Trade him to a team where he can be the contributing member of a championship caliber team, because it sure as Hell isn’t going to happen in Cincinnati.

You can have him.

Seriously. Be my guest.

What are you waiting for?

(AP Photo/Al Behrman)

I’ve gotten so used to watching the Reds lose, I didn’t even realize they were in the midst of a five-game losing streak.  I’m glad it’s over.

Francisco Cordero sure made it interesting in the 9th, didn’t he?  Man, I was so ready to rip him a new one if he gave up the lead, but thanks to the (questionable) tag-out at home plate, and the too-close-for-comfort out at first base to end the game, Cordero escaped.  Barely.

I’ll give Cordero the benefit of the doubt, though.  When your team is losing games by seven runs - as the Reds often do - the closer tends to not get much work.

Johnny Cueto looked much, much better.  Personally, I would’ve yanked him in the 5th inning.  It was clear he was out of gas, and that inning had the potential to be ugly, but everything worked out in the end.

Did anyone miss not seeing Corey Patterson in the lineup?  Me neither.

And Felix Pie might be useless at the plate, but that was a nice catch to rob Junior of #598.  That’s okay, because Griffey robbed Alfonso Soriano of extra bases (if not a homerun) with a nice catch, making Soriano’s .177 batting average look that much sweeter.  Money well spent.

It’s Carlos Zambrano vs. Aaron Harang on Tuesday.  I predict the game will take 41 minutes.

Regardless of how grim things look for the Reds right now, we should all look forward to the May 22 match-up against… Indiana Jones.

Yup, that’s right.  The Reds will square off against the grizzled old archaeologist in what will surely be a battle for the ages.

P.S. No, I’m not responsible for this.  See for yourself.